The Great Walks are the perfect trails to start your tramping career on, no matter your age.

A couple of weeks before turning 64, Valda Kerekes walked her first Great Walk, the Rakiura Track. She was instantly hooked. The now 77-year-old from Warkworth has since completed all the Great Walks bar the Paparoa.

In July 2008, Valda started going to the gym for health reasons. The possibility of walks was in the ‘maybe if I get fit enough’ file. 

“Originally I had Lake Waikaremoana in mind, but nothing really more than that,” she says.

The next year Valda’s son, a keen adventurer, suggested she do the Rakiura Track while she was in Invercargill. “I knew very little about tramping so it was an adventure. I didn’t know how to file intentions and had no idea what a PLB was,” she admits. “But I enjoyed the Rakiura so much that after that trip I was determined to do all the other Great Walks.” 

Valda chose the Great Walks as she knew they were dedicated trails and were safer when tramping alone. “I didn’t set out with a particular date in mind to complete them by, but for a while I was doing one a year,” she says. “The Milford Track is something I’d heard a lot about and it had always fascinated me. It took a while to get a booking for that one.”

Valda’s favourite is the Kepler Track. “Weather always plays a part, and I was lucky,” she says. “Just past Luxmore Hut, I sat and watched the clouds wafting through the fiord, up the valley and then dissipating. It was absolutely magical, and a real stand-out moment.’ 

On that trip, Valda discovered the native mountain flowers in New Zealand. “They really appealed to me, and the forest along the river towards the end was just beautiful. What didn’t appeal was all the steps at the other end of the ridgeline. At the time I was wearing bifocal glasses, and I tended to miss steps,” she laughs. 

“I definitely want to go back and do it again if I can.”

Valda loves being in the forest and enjoys the solitude. “I mostly tramp alone but on the Great Walks you always meet people. It’s good, because you know you’re going to meet like-minded people and you’ll have company if you want it.”

The Milford didn’t quite come up to her expectations. “I did enjoy it, but there was less birdlife than I expected. I enjoyed the side trek to Sutherland Falls and stripping down and getting into the water like a few others. Not totally stripping down, I might add – I have to be a little dignified.”

There was a long day of rain on the Routeburn and she found it scary on the wet stones. “I was afraid I would slip, and I didn’t get to see any of the real beauty of the track. I had a real sense of accomplishment at the end, though.”

Walking the Great Walks increased her desire for adventure and she has since tramped several long-distance tracks around the world, including the 300km Camino Primitivo in northern Spain when she was 74.

“If you’d told me back in 2008 that I’d be doing things like that, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. It shows you don’t have to stop doing things as you get older.”